I need more laziness. I was doing some refactoring the other day and a cow-orker asked why I was bothering to do it. "Because I'm lazy!" I said. I need more of that (true) laziness, less false laziness, and a better ability to discern between the two.

-- Mike

-- XML::Simpler does not require XML::Parser or a SAX parser.
It does require File::Slurp.
-- grantm, perldoc XML::Simpler

I'd like to say that I need more laziness, since that would imply that I'm hard-working and efficient. This is not the case. I'm plenty lazy, and if there's an existing solution to my problem then I'm using that.

I could probably use more impatience, though, both in the Perlish sense and in the real-life sense. If it takes someone an hour to get my meal to me in a restaurant, then I'll just sit and do other stuff for that hour. I don't believe anyone should ever be in that much of a hurry unless they're on the way to the emergency room.

Hubris? I've got more than my share of that.

Polls! Now here's one we could all use more of. I like knowing what people think about things, and polls are a good way of seeing how my opinions compare to other people's opinions. For some reason I don't understand, my vote usually lands in the one that's 10-11%. But in this case, however it stacks up, my vote is for polls.

I'd like to say that I need more laziness, since that would imply that I'm hard-working and efficient. This is not the case. I'm plenty lazy, and if there's an existing solution to my problem then I'm using that.

Non sequitur. You appear to be confusing sloth and laziness.
Hard-working efficiency complements laziness, as it implies getting the
necessary work done with minimal effort and time. "Sloth" is simply slacking
off or avoiding necessary work.

Drifting way the heck off-topic, but: I asked my girlfriend if she wanted to live in sin. She didn't, until I qualified it. "What if we restrict it to sloth and gluttony?" She was all over that like a trophy wife on a pool boy.

I really need more polls. Currently I have approximately 25 percent of my workday which is not taken up with meetings (read that: getting together with groups of people who need I.T. input on their project, by sitting around a table making outrageous demands, debating endlessly the wording of the committee’s statement of objectives, or attempting to trap someone else into accidentally making a decision or commitment, until the meeting is terminated by hydraulic pressure), Corporate updates (read: Management who will pull a group of people into an uncomfortable room for hours on end to “Share valuable information” with “their” people on an impersonal level without having to send a simple email), and important polls required to improve our service to you! (read: a list of questions: with answers so vague that no improvement will be possible or, to improve management performance, while easily identifying any fool who dares to answer truthfully, or to provide valuable feedback on the latest trivial communication with our company – my god! I asked “will a paper bill be sent?”, answer “yes”. End of contact. This needs a poll?).

Perhaps restaurants should have polls on the table requesting feedback on every meal. Perhaps we should create entire companies dedicated to polling, they could offer options such as personal polls where they could call and annoy people in their homes, or harass potential customers while the shop/dine etc, or maybe they could offer a service where one could create a web based poll, to be sent to hundreds or perhaps thousands of dis-interested folks. You know, we could use polls at work, rather than having people talk with one another.

If we can fill the remaining work time with useless overhead I will be expendable and can fire myself as a corporate improvement, start a consulting company to conduct polls of companies who have people who actually do work until their best people are slagged with useless information gathering tasks in the name of improvement, then I can consult with those companies, show them how to cut expenses by firing those people who were doing nothing but filling out polls, and gathering information to prove that they were working while driving their self esteem down the tubes.

Seems by some of the poll answers that an explanation of the choices might be in order:(At least if we want to stick to a Perl culture frame of reference)

From Programming Perl, 2 ed, by Larry Wall:

Laziness
The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer, Also hence, this book. See also impatience and hubris. (p.609)

Impatience
The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and hubris. (p.608)

Hubris
Excessive pride, the sort of thing Zeus zaps you for. Also the quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad things about. Hence, the third great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and impatience. (p.607)

(But then again, I might just be lacking in the humor department today...)
jobi

Humility. Definitely humility. I have an abundance of all the other stuff ...

I've got plenty of hubris,
and hubr' is plenty for me.
Got no shame,
moral code,
got no integrity.

Well the folks who go around humble,
never show in the news,
'fraid that fame will distract them
from bein' able to choose.
No clues!
I don't fall for that old ruse,
I know that I am the best.
You can walk in a deep snooze,
while I keep beating my chest.
I'll play the game
for fortune and fame, and lotsa booze.

I've got plenty of hubris,
and hubr' is plenty for me.
Got my polls,
impatience too,
and Laziness is free.

Possibly. It's False Lazyness to not look up words you don't know, and instead spend time pondering, then time replying. The True Lazyness would be to spend the time to find out (which reading the other replies to this poll, specificly Re: I need more..., would have told you, BTW), in order to not have to spend the time wondering and looking silly in the future. (See also Hubris, which makes you not want to look silly not for the time it takes, but as a goal in it's own right.)

OTOH, posting such a self-depercating note when you could have fixed the problem yourself smacks of a lack of Hubris.

Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

I think it's funny that hubris is winning the poll,
but most of the people bothering to comment are claiming
that they need to be more lazy.
We hubris-seekers have no time to waste on your laziness.
Or something.

Ah, I ascribed it to the hubris-seekers being too shy to post. (Myself included.)

Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other